FF Versus XIII: All About the Graphics, Baby

Tetsuya Nomura had a little chat with Famitsu recently in which he discussed several elements of Final Fantasy Versus XIII's graphics.

The title's movie director, Takeshi Nozue, has apparently been working to improve the game-generated cutscene graphics, and with great success. Tweaks to character hair and conversation behavior (they've been working on this with the voice actors as well, recording certain lines in groups so as to achieve a more natural result) appear to constitute a large percentage of these improvements. The main area of attention, though, is lighting effects. Nozue and his team have put in seemingly obsessive amounts of work on this element of the game, an effort which resulted in images that astounded the Famitsu staff members present (I would imagine generating that response is no easy task).

Aside from the fact that the team is working to make game-generated cutscenes as close in quality to pre-rendered cutscene graphics as possible, they have taken on the challenge of changing the very nature of cutscenes within the game. Nomura says that in Versus, the player will have control of his/her character during all game-generated cutscenes. Nomura said that the new engine is difficult to explain and that he hasn't seen anything like it previously, so that's helpful. He mentioned that he often finds himself skipping cutscenes, and that the goal here is to create a more natural, immersive atmosphere that allows the player to remain involved.

Nomura also hinted further at Versus XIII's gameplay, stating that, while it will employ gameplay elements from the Kingdom Hearts series, it will not be quite as action-oriented as the later and that Versus XIII will have more variety.

Nomura ended by apologizing for making fans wait so long. I'll decide whether or not to forgive him if once this ever finally comes out.

Source: IGN